The ethics of single maternity in contemporary irish women's fictionLa ética de la maternidad en solitario en la novela irlandesa contemporánea de mujeres

Abstract

This dissertation analyses the literary representation of how single mothers personify the ideological concern with the degradation of Irish culture, because of their transgression of the established moral codes. The selected novels are Mothers (1982) by Mary Rose Callaghan, The Killeen (1985) by Mary Leland and Down by the river (1996) by Edna O�Brien. These texts converge in their intersection of historical and socio-cultural elements and they are articulated similarly around feminist agendas. The three authors make visible the psychological obstacles that Irish women find when they face an unwanted pregnancy outside marriage, and they project the experiences of this group of women from an individual perspective. Likewise, they question the artefacts that underlie these obstacles, as they create an alternative space of expression in which they subvert the parameters that delimit them, finding formulas to accommodate the maternal to their own acquisition of subjectivity.